Geniza Lab

Palimpsest, Sifra 11d-12c, with 2 Kings 2:4 written in the lower margins in a different hand, over an unidentified Syriac text containing a quotation from the Gospel of Luke 5:27. Part of the same manuscript as T-S NS 258.140 and T-S 16.351. (Information from CUDL.)

Palimpsest, with the Palestinian Talmud, Pesaḥim 37c-d, written over an unidentified Syriac text. (Information from CUDL)

Ketubba, Rabbanite. Dated: [13]56 Seleucid, which is 1044/45 CE.Groom: Thābit b. Yaʿaqov. Bride: [...] bt. Abu l-Faraj (based on the filing note on verso). Mentions 20 dinars, but the right half of the document is missing, and it is difficult to reconstruct the quantities of each category of marriage payment. Witnesses include: [...] b. Ḥalfon; Binyamin b. Mevorakh ha-Kohen; Yefet b. David ha-Ḥazzan; Shelomo b. Yosef. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Marriage contract (ketubba). Only the heading and first lines preserved. Dated: 1391 Seleucid, which is 1079/80 CE. The groom is named Naḥum. Handwriting of Hillel b. ʿEli? (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Betrothal deed (or marriage contract?). Location: Ṣafad (צפת). Dated: Sunday, 7 Ḥeshvan 5591 AM, which is 24 October 1830 CE. Fiancée: Raḥel Masʿūda bt. Yiṣḥaq Yishni, a widow. Fiancé: Yiṣḥaq b. Barukh Roqaḥ (רקח). The marriage payments and dowry amount to 1000 gurūsh (גרוש). Witnessed by Shalom Sasportas (ששפורטש) and [...] Sananes (סאנאניס). (Information from CUDL and Goitein’s index card.)

Marriage contract (ketubba). Location: New Cairo. Dated: Friday, 6 Elul 5576 AM, which is 1816 CE. Groom: Refael Tortos b. Merkado. Bride: Esther Tantan (? תנתן) bt. Eliyyahu Reuben. The marriage payments together with the dowry amount to 110,000 medins. Witnessed by three people including the groom(?), David ben Naʿīm, and Angel (אנג'יל). Decorated header and borders with designs of flowers and birds. (Information from CUDL and Goitein’s index card.)

Bill of release by Eli in which Hiba b. Moshe acknowledges to have received from Abu al-Khayr 1.5 dinars. Signed by Shemarya ha-Kohen b. Natan. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. A settlement in connection with the dissolution of a partnership between Abū ʿAlī Yeḥezqel ha-Levi and Banīn (possibly the druggist Banīn b. Daʿūd), who had jointly run a perfumery in Giza. Abū ʿAlī will continue to run the store on his own, and Banīn will repay him in weekly installments for his share of the rent of the store. The store itself is owned by Sibāʿ the Muslim. Dated: 5 Shevaṭ 1437 Seleucid, which is 1126 CE. Ḥalfon also signed the document, together with the teacher Yiṣḥaq b. Ḥayyim Nafūsī. Join with PER H 92? (Information from CUDL.)

Power of attorney. Mainly in Hebrew. Dated: Monday, 6 Adar 1539 Seleucid, which is 1228 CE, under the jurisdiction of Avraham Maimonides. The physician Elʿazar b. Tiqva ha-Levi, in Ashmūm Ṭannaḥ (אשמום טנאח), instructs Eliyyahu the Judge, in Fusṭāṭ, to betroth on his behalf the widow Yāmūn bt. ʿEli b. Yosef (יאמון האלמנה אלמרכשיה), from Marrakesh in Morocco. Witnesses: Netanel b. Shemarya; Menaḥem b. Yefet; Mevorakh b. Shelomo ha-Kohen known as al-Dilāthī (this transliteration is clarified by comparison with the Arabic script). There is an addendum in Arabic script, which is a message from Hibatallāh b. [...] to Rabbenu Pinḥas (b. Meshullam?). This is essentially a validation (qiyyum) in which he identifies the witnesses to the above document and confirms that their signatures are genuine. One of them is from the Ibn al-Munīr family of physicians, a relation of al-Muhadhdhab Ibn al-Munīr who is also mentioned in T-S 10J12.10. In the second part of this addendum, a physician titled al-Muhadhdhab (unclear if he is identical with the one just mentioned) asks Pinḥas to convey the document to the hands of Eliyyahu the Judge. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. This is a very long vertical strip from the middle of the letter. It was partially cut up, and the beginning of the letter was apparently rotated 180 degrees and glued back on. (Verso was then reused for Exodus 29:45–46; Malachi 3:4; Psalms 147:5–10; 95:7–11.) Mentions the sender's arrival in some place; "our elders"; "the West"; poverty; some sort of communal conflict; and "the heads of the Qaraites." Several lines toward the bottom are crossed and/or rubbed out. (Information in part from Goitein's index card and CUDL)

Letter from Barhun b. Musa, probably from Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Probably 1062. Barhun writes the letter in the name of his brother, Yosef. He does not write the place where the letter is written but it seems like he is in a port city, probably Alexandria. Before that, he was in Safakus and Mahdiyya. Mentions large shipments of dirhams. Several of Nahray’s business partners are mentioned as well. Deals with selling and shipping goods to Mahdiyya, Tripoli, and Sicily and some details about prices. Mentions the Byzantines that want pepper. Also mentions some family matters about Nahray’s aunt (from his mother’ side) who is in a bad financial situation, and his cousin Yisra'el b. Natan who is in mental distress (or is simply engaged in a prolonged dispute with Barhūn; this section begins on verso, line 9). It seems that Barhun wrote the letter soon before his death in 1062, because he mentions the passing of Elhanan b. Isma’il al-Tahirti, who died in 1062. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #348) VMR

Ketubba fragment for Dalāl bt. Yosef and Shelomo b. Natan. Date and location not preserved. Witnessed by Yeshuʿa b. Shabbat (שבאת), Aharon b. Efr[ayim], Ḥalfon b. Avraham, and Mevorakh b. Shemuel. Information from CUDL.

Recto: Abu al-Makarim gives eight pieces of clothing to Abu al-Mufaddal as collateral for 4 dinars. Dated Elul 1525/August 1213. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 413) Verso: Note relating to a marriage. (Information from CUDL)

Late letter from Jacob Bagilyer to his brother Aharon. Dealing with financial matters (amounts in peraḥim/ducats). (Information from CUDL)

Letter from David b. Avraham Maimonides to R. Isaac regarding some community issues in Ashmum. Connected with T-S 13J27.1. Information from CUDL and Goitein's note card.

Letter sent from Alexandria by Yefet b. Shela to Yosef ha-Kohen, who had returned from Eastern countries to Fustat on his way back to Sicily or some other place in the west. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Two copies of a letter from Mahruz to Sulayman b. Abu Zikri Kohen before sailing back to India. Aden, ca. 1137-1147.

Two fragments from the outer leaves of a collection of late responsum on agents, citing Haro”sh and other rabbinical authorities. There are six elaborate signatures of the scribe Yeshuʿa b. Shababo (שבאבו). (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Yeshua ha-Kohen b. Yosef in Alexandria to the community of Fustat. The handwriting is Yeshua's and the letter is written in rhymed prose. (Information from Frenkel. See additional information in Goitein, Med. Soc. 5:367-8 and Bareket, Shafrir Miṣrayim, 18 (notice there is a mistake in Frenkel's 'mentioned' list: Goitein deals with this letter in volume 5 of Med. Soc. and not in volume 4. The page in volume 5 is 368 and not 68. She also does not mention Bareket's edition). While Bareket claims that the letter was sent from Jerusalem, Goitein claims that it was sent from Alexandria. Goitein claims that the letter was sent by Shelomo b. Yehuda to the Karaites and Rabbanites in Egypt and it was written down by Yeshua ha-Kohen b. Yosef ha-dayyan.

Commercial letter in Ladino, 1733 CE (Tishrei 5594), in Egypt. It concerns the dispatch of goods from Fusṭāṭ and mentions the ships Enrico e Maria and Francesca. A Magen David is drawn in the margin on verso. At the foot of verso is a list in three columns. Information partially from CUDL (where the century is off).